But, I recognize that diet really needs to come under the microscope. I am just "guesstimating" my intake, and while I said I would give myself till February 1 to continue to eat breakfast cereal, I struggle with portion controlling it. Never ever ever ever EVER trust your eyeballs when it comes to something that is a dietary weakness for you. Eyeballs are little liars! :P
So, this week, it's time to start making the first of many tough decisions -- reeling in my diet whether I'm ready to or not. I know that after the first few days, the mental anguish will be replaced with a sense of pride, accomplishment, and a feeling like I am making real moves toward achieving my goals. Still, it's gonna suck.
I need to either find a way to fix my heart rate monitor or else replace it altogether so I can get a sense of how many calories I am actually burning in a day. The meal plan I begin to build is really only useful if I am indeed burning the amount of calories I think I am. For now, I used an online calculator (this is a great calculator: http://vonblancofitness.com/fat-loss/how-to-calculate-calories-needed-for-fat-loss-muscle-gain-or-maintenance/). My inputs were:
Height: 5'8"
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Current Weight: 142
How much exercise? 5 times/week (intense)
According to this, I need about 2,100 calories to maintain my weight, 1,750 to cut (lose body fat), and 2,600 calories to bulk (gain muscle). The next 3 months I am dedicating to "gentle" cutting; nothing extreme, but slowly changing the types of food I eat to alter my macronutrient distribution. For the first two month, I think a healthy plan would be 45% calories from carbs, 33% calories from protein, and 22% calories from fat. For the third month, I'd go down to a 40-35-25 spread. Although my body responds most favorably to a low carbohydrate diet, I don't want to do something dramatic and unsustainable in the first couple months because it sort of puts me in a mentally unhealthy spot -- and I'm in this for the long haul.
Week 2 will carry over Week 1's goals (water, no junky snack foods, and the same workout plan). I will also cut out all coffee and diet soda, and will follow the meal plan below, based on the caloric intake of 1,750 calories as my goal, broken into 788 calories worth of carbs, 577 calories worth of protein and 385 calories worth of healthy fats. Knowing that each gram of carbs and protein equals 4 calories, and each gram of fats equals 9 calories, that would be 197 grams of carbs, 144 grams of protein, and 43 grams of fat.
Disclaimer: Food Nazi's -- I am aware that this diet is not 100% clean. I will be making my own homemade lunches starting next week, and will eventually be cutting out dairy. But those transitions will come in the following weeks. I wanna use up the stuff in my pantry now instead of spend money making new stuff.
Those extra 85 calories will easily be made up throughout the day, no doubt, when I grab a couple almonds here and there, or beef jerky at the office, etc. :)
In terms of how I'm feeling.... I feel like I lack the sense of urgency I felt the first time I did this journey back in 2012. Maybe it's because I already know what I need to do... I'm just generally not feeling confident in my diet plan. I never know if I'm eating too much... too little... I'm feeling like I should just hire a sports nutritionist and be done with it already.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts. Week 2... over and out!
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